Jones vs Cormier was the best match of the night imo, and Jones won after a headkick. Cormier seemed to be doing well, but then boom he was hit hard. After the match Jones challenged Brock Lesnar. Said he would kick his ass.

**The biggest story coming out of UFC 214 was the challenge made by Jon Jones to Brock Lesnar at the end of the show and that Lesnar could feel was it was like to have his ass kicked by someone 40 pounds lighter. Lesnar responded through the Associated Press later that night saying “Be careful what you wish for, young man.”

It is the biggest fight that the UFC can put together without Conor McGregor involved and there are going to be lots of questions regarding McGregor’s future after the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fight.

The logistics of putting together Jones and Lesnar are numerous. Lesnar not only has to re-enter the USADA testing pool and that is a six-month testing period Lesnar would have to go through (he also had his one-year suspension broken this past February when he retired, which was retroactive to July 15th 2016). Realistically, if Lesnar were to fight again, it probably wouldn’t take place until after next year’s WrestleMania when he is contractually free to do so and gets through the WWE’s major period of the year from Royal Rumble through WrestleMania. It would be hard to see the WWE signing off again and allowing Lesnar to fight, both because of the need to have Lesnar during that January – April stretch and also how the last fight at UFC 200 played out.

It was a risk putting Lesnar against a dangerous heavyweight in Mark Hunt but Lesnar passed the test and dominated the fight. It was the aftermath with Lesnar testing positive twice for Hydroxy-clomiphene in two separate tests. The positive drug tests were publicity the WWE obviously didn’t want and also forced their hand to publically admit for the first time that part-time performers such as Lesnar were not subject to the promotion’s Wellness Policy and exposed a large loophole in the policy. What the WWE got out of the UFC 200 agreement was a SummerSlam ad on the pay-per-view and a large audience watching Lesnar, but there was no evidence that they gained an enormous level of lapsed fans to subscribe to the WWE Network and was a deal that benefited Lesnar more than anyone because of the money he made for one night of fighting, even offset by a $250,000 fine by the Nevada Athletic Commission.

While Lesnar and Conor McGregor fighting for the UFC in the next six-months are question marks, the UFC does have a number of big fights on the horizon after a terrible first half of 2017. The Georges St-Pierre vs. Michael Bisping fight is a major fight, regardless of the issues it could create for the middleweight division and is as viable a main event for Madison Square Garden and pay-per-view as the UFC has at the moment. With Jon Jones victorious, it opens up a rematch opportunity for Alexander Gustafsson and of course, the Lesnar fight trumps all other options for future opponents for Jones. Dana White has eased off the idea of McGregor fighting on December 30th, if they can get a McGregor fight in by the end of 2017 than the year takes a dramatic turn with pay-per-view business with the both St-Pierre and McGregor fighting in the final two-months of the year. While not expected, you still can’t rule out a possible fight from Ronda Rousey, who has yet to retire and thus still subjecting herself to regular USADA testing and if she was completely closing the door to fighting, USADA would speed up the process of a fighter not wanting that nuisance in their everyday lives of notifying USADA on their whereabouts and getting a knock on the door at random hours of the day/night.

**UFC 214 took place on Saturday night in front of 16,610 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and a live gate of $2,448,870 and was probably the best UFC card of the year. Below are the full results from the card:*Drew Dober def. Josh Burkman by KO at 3:04 of Round 1 – This was Burkman’s fourth straight loss and has lost 6/7 (that would be one higher if his loss to Hector Lombard wasn’t changed to a no contest) and it would be a surprise if the UFC kept Burkman.*Jarred Brooks def. Eric Shelton by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) *Aleksandra Albu def. Kailin Curran by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – Albu won the first two rounds and these two had a great fight.*Calvin Kattar def. Andre Fili by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Kattar took the fight on short notice and looked great in this fight and won all three rounds. It was a competitive fight but Kattar had the better of the exchanges throughout the fight and beat a quality guy in his UFC debut.*Brian Ortega def. Renato Moicano by guillotine choke at 2:59 of Round 3 – This is crazy, Ortega has now won four straight fights with a third round finish. Moicano was on his way to winning a decision when he shot for a takedown and was instantly caught in a guillotine and tapped. This was a great fight too and got the fight of the night bonus.*Aljamain Sterling def. Renan Barao by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-26) – A great performance from Sterling with a 10-8 second round and was able to take Barao down, which is a monumental feat given his takedown defence. Barao is a different fighter than the one that dominated the bantamweight division years ago.*Ricardo Lamas def. Jason Knight by TKO at 4:34 of Round 1 – Lamas connected with big blows to Knight and Knight appeared out on his feet. The fight could have ended earlier than it did but Knight took a ton of big shots before it finally was.*Volkan Oezdemir def. Jimi Manuwa by KO at 0:42 of Round 1 – Oezdemir was a star on this show with his third consecutive UFC win and is now a contender at light heavyweight. If you were a rising light heavyweight star, this was the show to have that kind of performance as he blasted Manuwa coming off the cage and once again showcased his incredible power.*Robbie Lawler def. Donald Cerrone by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – The consensus was Lawler won the first and third rounds. He appeared tired in the second round and Cerrone took full advantage to win that round. This was a really good fight and expectations were very high going in. Lawler could land the next welterweight title shot against Tyron Woodley.*Cris “Cyborg” Justino def. Tonya Evinger by TKO at 1:56 of Round 3 to become the UFC women’s featherweight champion – This was another strong outing for Justino and one of her best performances to date. She was patient with her strikes, didn’t tire as the fight wore on and was landing very powerful shots on Evinger throughout the fight. The body shot in the third dropped Evinger and she was finished with knees. The big question is what will happen with Justino’s contract coming due later this year as she has indicated a desire to leave. Evinger will almost certainly continue at bantamweight for the promotion.*Tyron Woodley def. Demian Maia by unanimous decision (50-45, 49-46, 49-46) to retain the UFC welterweight title – It was not a pretty fight to watch and the crowd live hated it. If you look at how dominant Maia has been through his grappling and who he has beaten, you have to appreciate the strategy and how Woodley stopped takedown after takedown. Woodley has the power to stop any welterweight but it was a cautious game plan against a very dangerous ground specialist and Woodley forced Maia to fight his style and not vice versa.*Jon Jones def. Daniel Cormier by KO at 3:01 of Round 3 to win the UFC light heavyweight title – This fight was incredible, the walkouts made this feel like one of the biggest fights of all-time and while this fight was shorter, it was way more competitive than the first fight. The first round was a toss-up round. Just about everyone scored Round 2 for Cormier and then the third began and Jones blasted him with a head kick and Cormier could not recover, was dropped by the cage and absorbed a series of brutal elbows before John McCarthy ended the fight.

**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Brian Ortega and Renato Moicano and the Performance bonuses went to Jon Jones and Volkan Oezdemir, for $50,000 each.

**John McCarthy posted a message that he had re-watched the main event from Saturday over and over and believes he could have stopped the fight two punches earlier “But I don’t get 2nd chances”.

**Daniel Cormier released the following statement on Sunday night to address his loss to Jon Jones:

First off, thank you all for the kind words. I have felt the support. Congratulations to Jon Jones and his team. They did a phenomenal job and got the victory. Also, to Big John McCarthy, I would like to apologize for acting up with you. I am thankful for the time you gave me to try and defend myself and stay in the fight. You are the best in the business for a reason. I also wanna thank my team and my coaches. I love you all from the bottom of my heart. Your time and energy is greatly appreciated. You guys did a wonderful job, I was ready. It’s a fist fight and things happen. Dana White and the @ufc, thank you for being the premiere organization in all of MMA. Again, congrats to Team Jones and JacksonWink. Love you all. I’ll see you soon. DC

Joe Rogan also issued an apology for interviewing Daniel Cormier after he had been knocked out at the conclusion of his fight with Jon Jones:

My apologies to D.C. And to everyone else upset at me for interviewing him after the fight. In all honestly I was kind of in shock and I don’t think I realized what I was doing until I had a mic in my hand and I was talking to him. I’ve said that I don’t want to interview fighters after they’ve been KO’ed and then I did it to someone that I care a great deal about. It was 100% my fuck up and no one pressured me to do it. I posted a series of tweets about it on twitter but I know some of you folks only use instagram or Facebook so I thought the right thing to do is post it here as well. I was beating myself up about it all night, and whenever something like that happens it’s always my sincere intention to apologize and express my honest feelings. It’ll never happen again.

**Dwayne Johnson attended UFC 214 on Saturday and met with a bunch of different fighters. He was seen backstage and recorded a video with Jon Jones and you can hear Jones’ agent Malki Kawa in the background talking about the two teaming together at WrestleMania as a joke. Johnson also took a photo with Demetrious Johnson, who attended the show as well.

**In a rarity, the UFC will only have one card for the entire month of August and it happens this Saturday night from Mexico City. Originally, they were going to have a pay-per-view card on August 19th in Seattle but that was never officially announced and they won’t run another pay-per-view card until September 9th in Edmonton. This weekend’s show will be headlined by Sergio Pettis and Brandon Moreno in a flyweight bout and will also feature Randa Markos taking on Alexa Grasso, Alan Jouban fighting Niko Price while the biggest name on the card is Rashad Evans, who is fighting Sam Alvey.

**Sky Sports has announced that they will be carrying the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight live on Saturday August 26th. It will air on Sky Sports Box Office and The Mirror in the U.K. is reporting that the price tag will be £19.95 for the fight, which is significantly less than the North American pay-per-view price of $99.95 in HD.

**The UFC announced their remaining dates for 2017 on Saturday’s broadcast with the following highlights:*UFC 216 – Saturday October 7th at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas*UFC 217 – Saturday November 4th at Madison Square Garden*Fight Night – Saturday November 25th in Shanghai, China (first card in mainland China)*TUF 26 Finale – Saturday December 1st at Park Theatre in Las Vegas*UFC 218 – Saturday December 2nd at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit*UFC on FOX – Saturday December 16th in Winnipeg, Manitoba (first show in Winnipeg since June 2013)*UFC 219 – Saturday December 30th at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas

**The Rizin Fighting Federation has announced they will hold a grappling exhibition between Dan Henderson and Kazushi Sakuraba on their October 15th event in Fukuoka. Both were on hand for Rizin’s card early Sunday morning and shook hands in the ring to announce the exhibition.

**At Sunday’s Rizin card, Kyoji Horiguchi knocked out Hideo Tokoro in the opening round to advance to the second round of the Bantamweight Grand Prix. Khalid Taha and Takafumi Otsuka also advanced in the tournament with wins over Keita Ishibashi and Anthony Birchak respectively. Reina Miura defeated pro wrestler Lei’d Tapa by unanimous decision (the same week where Tapa’s NXT match aired with a quick loss to Ember Moon). The other notable outcome was Gabi Garcia and Oksana Gagloeva only lasting 0:16 and it was ruled a no contest due to an eye poke.

**The UFC ran their one and only card for the month of August this past Saturday at Arena Ciudad in Mexico City. The card drew an announced crowd of 10,072. Below are the results from the show:*Jordan Rinaldi def. Alvaro Herrera by Von Flue choke at 2:01 of Round 1 – Herrera has a lot of power and clipped Rinaldi coming off the fence but was taken down and held onto a head lock and set up the Von Flue by Rinaldi.*Joseph Morales def. Roberto Sanchez by rear-naked choke at 3:56 of Round 1 – Morales dropped him with a right hand and got the back, he had to re-adjust but finally got the tap. Because of the amount of first round finishes, both these fights aired on the televised portion as well as Fight Pass.*Jose Alberto Quinonez def. Diego Rivas by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Quinonez seemed to have better conditioning and quicker on his feet and had several takedowns in the fight.*Rani Yahya def. Henry Briones by kimura at 2:01 of Round 1 – When Yahya forces his grappling, he is so fun to watch and once he took Briones down, it was over as Yahya just played with him and transitioned from position to another before locking on a deep kimura and getting the tap.*Dustin Ortiz def. Hector Sandoval by KO at 0:15 of Round 1 – Ortiz ate a shot but then caught him on the temple with an overhand right that wobbled Sandoval and dropped with another right. This was the fastest knockout in UFC flyweight history.*Jack Hermansson def. Brad Scott by TKO at 3:50 of Round 1 – Hermansson got a takedown off the cage and Hermansson used his vicious ground and pound to with a steady stream of elbows and got the stoppage.*Alejandro Perez def. Andre Soukhamthath by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – This was a really good fight. Soukhamthath got several knockdowns with a short left and started to taunt Perez and held up three fingers after the third knockdown. *Sam Alvey def. Rashad Evans by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – Evans won the first round with a takedown and landed a knee to the body. Alvey won the second round close and the third round saw Alvey get very comfortable with his striking and Evans caught when he would shoot in for a takedown. Evans immediately left the octagon after the decision was read as he desperately needed this win and has lost four straight now.*Humberto Bandenay def. Martin Bravo by KO at 0:26 of Round 1 – This was one of the best knockouts of the year as Bandenay landed a body kick to set up a head kick and finished with a pair of hammer fists.*Niko Price def. Alan Jouban by TKO at 1:44 of Round 1 – Price landed a straight right and attacked Jouban, who was wobbled badly as the fight was stopped and Jouban struggled to get to his feet, this was the proper call by referee Gary Copeland.*Alexa Grasso def. Randa Markos by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – This was a great fight. I scored it 29-28 for Grasso with Grasso winning the first and third and Markos clearly winning the second round. Grasso looked significantly better and more comfortable in this fight than her last fight with Felice Herrig. Markos was very upset with the decision and wanted to file an appeal. It was a close fight but this wasn’t a controversy. *Sergio Pettis def. Brandon Moreno by unanimous decision (49-47, 48-46, 48-46) – Moreno looked great in the first round and won it 10-8 using the new rules. Pettis got his composure and started landing frequently and utilizing his speed and precision. Pettis is a big talent at flyweight and his major drawback is that he isn’t a big name and Demetrious Johnson feels like he is so far ahead of everyone at this weight.

**There was no Fight of the Night bonus and instead they handed out Performance bonuses to Niko Price, Humberto Bandenay, Dustin Ortiz and Joseph Morales for $50,000 each.

**With the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight on August 26th, the UFC won’t run another card until Saturday September 2nd in Rotterdam in The Netherlands. That card is headlined by a heavyweight bout between Stefan Struve and former Bellator heavyweight champion Alexander Volkov and will also feature Germaine de Randamie returning to bantamweight and fighting Marion Reneau.

**UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones appeared on Good Morning America on Monday. He was downplaying the fight with Brock Lesnar and said it would probably be a while before he could fight Lesnar and indicated he is tabling other options besides Lesnar.

**On the USADA testing pool, if Brock Lesnar does re-enter the pool, USADA informed us that they will not disclose that news and it is up to Lesnar and the UFC to disclose such information. Publically, Jeff Novitsky of the UFC stated two-weeks ago that Lesnar had not re-entered the pool when asked by MMA Fighting. As we have written about, Lesnar would have to re-enter the pool and be tested for six-months and finish up the remaining months on his frozen drug suspension from July 2016, which was frozen following his retirement this past February.

**ESPN: The Magazine is releasing their Fighting Issue this Friday on newsstands and here is a link to the long form piece on Conor McGregor by the excellent Wright Thompson. McGregor will also be on the cover of this Friday’s issue.

**Sky Sports has announced that Dan Hardy will be working for the network as an analyst for the upcoming Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight on August 26th.

**Bellator has announced that James Gallagher will fight Jeremiah Labiano on November 10th when the promotion returns to Dublin, Ireland at the 3 Arena. Gallagher is 4-0 with Bellator and is coming off a very impressive submission victory over Chinzo Machida this past June at Madison Square Garden.

**And in case you haven't seen, Georges St-Pierre posted a photo announcing he was finally signing his bout agreement to fight Michael Bisping on November 4th at UFC 217.

According to TMZ, Jones has been stripped of his light heavyweight title after he apparently failed a drug test from his UFC 214 bout with Daniel Cormier. This was, of course, the match up which saw him returning to the UFC after a period of suspension. Jones had previously tested positive for banned substances just prior to his scheduled UFC 200 bout with Cormier in July of 2016 and the rematch between the opponents had to be scrapped altogether.

Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 9:32 pmPosts: 32780Location: this field intentionally left blank

I mean, like I said, the guy has fucked up over and over again. It's not at all hard to believe he'd do it again. On top of that, the UFC has nothing but money to make off of him being clean. Why would anyone set him up? It makes no sense.

**There is not much more to report on the Jon Jones story, although it has been confirmed that the substance found in his system was Turinabol, which is what TMZ initially reported on Tuesday night. Malki Kawa was on The MMA Hour and stated that the B sample will take approximately two-weeks to come back (it is next to a guarantee that it will reflect what was in the A sample) with Kawa adding he believes it is a tainted supplement. Jones did pass a pair of out-of-competition tests that were administered on July 6th and 7th and then failed the in-competition test on July 28th (the day before the fight in Anaheim). While nothing has been said about this, Jones would also have to take taken a drug test immediately after the fight and there is the possibility the same substance could be found in that test and would lead to a pair of drug test failures. Jones has not spoken publically as of yet and he has not been stripped of the UFC light heavyweight title.

**The New York Times has a story out today regarding the Nevada Athletic Commission’s role in sanctioning the fight between Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Conor McGregor. The feature focuses on the reluctance of the Association of Ringside Physicians to sanction such a fight with this much of an experience disparity between the two within the sport of boxing. The article notes that the state of Nevada receives 8% of the gross revenue from every ticket sold and then the Nevada Athletic Commission receives 25% of that figure. It is estimates that the state will receive more than $4.8 million for the fight and that will translate to $1.2 million for the commission. Many have spoken about the inherent conflict for a commission that is designed for fighter’s safety but is also serving the state and this fight brings up many questions, the biggest being if a fighter with zero pro boxing fights and no substantial marquee value would be sanctioned in in a similar situation. It will also make for a difficult rationalization by the commission for the next time they turn down a fight and have to justify their reasoning after providing a green light for this one.

**For whatever reason, the WBC has designed a “Money belt” to be awarded to the winner of Saturday night’s fight. WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman unveiled the title at Wednesday’s press conference and stated that the championship belt was made up of 3,360 diamonds, 600 sapphires, 300 emeralds, 1.5 kg of 24-karat gold and made with alligator leather.

**Brian Custer, Mauro Ranallo and Brendan Schaub handled Showtime’s coverage of Wednesday’s final press conference involving Mayweather and McGregor. This led to speculation that Paulie Malignaggi could be off the broadcast, however Stephen Espinoza of Showtime Sports confirmed to Ariel Helwani during an interview that Malignaggi will be working the booth on Saturday with Ranallo and Al Bernstein.